Thursday 24 April 2014

Bali Remembers - Flight Pan Am 812 April 22nd 1974

Bali History: Remembering 107 Passengers and Crew on 1974 Crash of Pan Am in Bali


The Clipper Climax operating as Pan Am Flight 812 crashed into a hillside at Grogek, North Bali, on April 22, 1974.

The Boeing 707-321B with registrationN446PA was carrying 96 passengers an 11 crew on a flight that had departed from Hong Kong approximately four hours earlier and was scheduled to stop in Bali briefly before continuing on to its next scheduled stop of Sydney, Australia.

But passengers onboard the ill-fated aircraft were never to reach Bali, let alone Sydney. As the aircraft approached Bali from the north and it made an early and precipitous turn for runway 09 at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport, slamming into a remote jungle hilltop 79 kilometers northwest of the airport.

Later, crash investigator were to determine that a premature execution of a right-hand turn in an effort to join the 263 degrees outbound track, possibly prompted by malfunctioning Radio Direction Finder, sent the aircraft and its passengers to their doom.

Today the tragic crash, that will mark its 40th year in 2014, is remembered at a shrine tucked away in a remote corner of Padang Galak, on the banks of the Ayung River. There, the names of the 107 who died in the crash are recorded on commemorative plaque, enshrined in stone and in the memory of the island forever.

No comments:

Post a Comment